The invention relates generally to plotting systems and deals more particularly with apparatus for rapidly producing an annotated design.
Plotters of the type with which this invention is concerned are used, for example, to outline or trace garment patterns with curved and straight design lines and to annotate the patterns with alphanumeric characters. Heretofore, a single inscribing device such as a standard line drawing device utilizing a pen, pencil or nondeflectable ink jet or a standard symbol printing device utilizing a matrix printer or a deflectable ink jet has been used in such plotters to produce both the design lines and the alphanumeric characters.
Each of the line drawing devices described above is specially adapted to draw large, sweeping lines and can do so rapidly; however, each is slow and cumbersome in drawing alphanumeric characters and other relatively small symbols because, to draw them, each line drawing device moves relative to the work-sheet along a path tracing them and in so moving, make many turns and repeatedly backtrack. Besides being slow in drawing such symbols, a plotting system utilizing a line drawing device is worn by the start-and-stop motion required to produce them.
A symbol printing device, such as one utilizing a matrix of impacting pins capable of inscribing a matrix of dots, is specially adapted for printing alphanumeric characters and other symbols because it can generate such symbols rapidly with one continuous sweep. However, most symbol printing devices produce unattractive design lines because the dots they produce are not continuous with one another leaving noticeable gaps. In addition, matrix printing devices are slower than line drawing devices in producing relatively large design lines because the impact rate of the printing pins is limited and the dots produced must be close enough to one another to produce a semblance of a line. Consequently, a plotting system utilizing only one type of inscribing device, either a line drawing device or a symbol printing device, is inefficient and slow in producing an inscription containing both design lines and alphanumeric characters or other symbols.
In U.S. Pat. No. 4,151,536, Valin discloses a plotting system utilizing a single, matrix printing device having two printing matrixes. One matrix consists of a single row of impactless printing electrodes which print alphanumeric characters and other symbols as the device is moved perpendicular to the row. The other matrix includes a circular arrangement of impactless printing electrodes centered about the row and operates in conjunction with the electrodes of the row to produce design lines, each of which design lines being denser and more continuous than a design line made from a single row of printing electrodes because dots produced by the circular matrix are made to overlap those produced by the row by appropriate movement of the device. Nevertheless, it is believed that a standard line drawing device produces design lines more rapidly and more attractively than the combined matrixes of '536.
A general aim of the invention is to provide a plotting system which is capable of rapidly producing an annotated design.
Another general aim of the invention is to provide a plotting system of the foregoing type which provides attractive design lines.
A more specific aim of the invention is to provide a plotting system of the foregoing type in which the design lines are continuous.
Still another general aim of the invention is to provide a plotting system capable of producing a type of mark with a suitably adapted plotting device.
Another specific aim of the invention is to provide a compound plotting system which includes means for providing an annotation, a line drawing means, and a control for automatically selecting and activating the annotation means to provide an annotation and the line drawing means to draw design lines.
Other aims and advantages of the invention will become apparent from the following detailed description and figures.